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Alex Schadenberg
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Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
I have great news. The California assisted suicide expansion bill (SB 1196) has been pulled. This is great news, but let's be clear, the language of SB 1196 is the goal of the assisted suicide lobby but the bill was determined to have gone too far too fast.
Based on the summary of SB 1196 by Senator Blakespear I stated that the bill would have:
- Allowed euthanasia by IV (intravenous), as in Canada. Currently, California
permits assisted suicide (lethal poison that a person
takes orally at the time and place of their own choosing, with or without
witnesses). This bill allowed for death by IV. This constitutes euthanasia/homicide.
- Changed the criteria from terminally ill (6 month prognosis) to the
Canadian model: “a grievous and irremediable medical condition.” Thus, there would be no time limit and no terminal illness requirement.
- Allowed people with early to mid-stage dementia to consent to assisted suicide or euthanasia, even though they have a condition that impairs their capacity to consent.
- Removed the California residency requirement. California would join Oregon and Vermont, dropping their residency requirements and allowing for suicide tourism.
- Removed the 2031 sunset clause in the California assisted suicide law.
I published an article on March 18, 2024, stating that the California bill would legalize medical killing. After the language of SB 1196 was released I further explained how SB 1196 would have expanded medical killing in California.
SB 1196 would have changed the law from requiring ingesting of the lethal poison to utilizing the lethal poison. Utilize was not defined in the bill but it could be defined as: "to make practical and effective use of."
SB 1196 would have changed the law from requiring a terminal disease to a grievous and irremediable medical condition.
Terminal disease was based on a 6 month prognosis whereas grievous and irremediable medical condition had a long definition that essentially mean't that the person has a serious chronic condition that will continue to decline.
The bill stated:
For
purposes of this part, a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”
includes a diagnosis of early to mid-stage dementia while the individual
still has the capacity to make medical decisions.
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IV catheter
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How would early to mid-state dementia have been defined in practise?SB 1196 permitted non-doctors to participate in the law. SB 1196 added the following: nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and registered nurses.
SB 1196 removed the residency requirement in the California law by striking out the words - is a resident of California.
SB 1196 allowed the use of an IV (intravenous) catheter to "utilize" the poison. SB 1196 stated:
death
through ingestion, or through an intravenous pathway after a health
care provider places an intravenous catheter if one was not already
placed, to bring about the qualified individual’s own death.
This statement did not limit the use of the IV catheter to assisted suicide and may have allowed for euthanasia/homicide.
Later SB 1196, stated:
For
purposes of this section, “assisting the qualified individual by
preparing the aid-in-dying drug” includes a health care provider placing
an intravenous catheter, so long as the health care provider does not
assist the qualified individual in introducing the aid-in-dying drug
into the qualified individual’s vein.
This
statement inferred that the person must somehow utilize the IV catheter.
The IV could be placed but the health care provider could not "assist". This was intentionally confusing. There may also have been circumstances, such as
ALS, where the person has difficulty "utilizing" the IV catheter without
assistance.
On June 22, 2022, a California federal judge rejected a case designed to permit euthanasia
within California's assisted suicide act. Shavelson, a doctor
that solely focuses on assisting suicide and Sandra Morris, who had ALS,
argued that the state's assisted suicide law discriminated against
people who had difficulty self-ingesting the lethal drugs and to remedy
the situation the state needed to permit euthanasia in those cases.
In
that case, Shavelson argued that allowing the administration of lethal
drugs by IV catheter when a person has difficulty self-administering the
lethal drugs was necessary. Justice Chhabria rejected the argument and stated:
Chhabria
ruled the case could not proceed on the theory that it violates the ADA
because the accommodation they seek would cross the boundary created by
the End of Life Option Act, “from the ability to end your own life to
the ability to have someone else end it for you.”
Chhabria further ruled:
“Such
an accommodation would ‘compromise' the essential nature of the act,
and would therefore fundamentally alter the program.’”
The judge said the law’s self-administration requirement is the “final safeguard” to ensure the act remains voluntary.
“A
person seeking to end their life pursuant to the act can opt out at any
point — after requesting or receiving the prescription, after the drugs
are in their hand, after the feeding tube has been installed, after
saying goodbye,” he wrote. “The accommodation that the plaintiffs seek
would significantly undermine these protections by opening a window
during which there would be no way of knowing whether the patient had
changed their mind.”
If
SB 1196 would have changed the California law by removing
self-administer, removing the terminal illness requirement and allowing
the utilization of an IV catheter, these changes would make it
impossible to distinguish between an act of assisted suicide and an act
of euthanasia/homicide.
Assisted suicide is receiving lethal poison and self-administer it for the purpose of causing death.
Euthanasia
is when another person, usually a medical professional, administers the
lethal poison for the purpose of causing death. Euthanasia is a form of
homicide/murder.
Since
SB 1196 did not require a "third/independent party" to witness the
act, therefore SB 1196 would have enable euthanasia under the guise of
assisted suicide and achieve for the euthanasia lobby what was denied
to them by Justice Chhabria in 2022.
SB 1196 was a "Trojan horse" euthanasia bill.
SB 1196 is the end goal of the assisted suicide lobby.